There's more to learning language than just words

One of the best parts of studying Chinese in China is overhearing conversations between people who assume I can't understand them. "Hey, check out the nose on that foreigner!" "Is he Russian?" "Ask him if he likes Chinese food." "No, you ask him!"

My fellow American teacher Jon and I try to be a little more careful when we're out and about in Guangzhou, usually sticking to rapid or colloquial English when referring to our fellow subway passengers. After last weekend, though, we're seriously considering taking up American Sign Language.

Jon and I bought tickets to a show in Shenzhen. To save money, we purchased through an online agency that provides two-way transportation. Arriving at the bus pick-up point just on time, we were surprised to discover the event organizers handing out nametags. My heart sank. I had been on Chinese tour buses like this before. I knew what was coming.

"We," I turned to Jon, "may have to sing karaoke."

Sitting in our second-row seats as the bus prepared to depart, we noticed that our Chinese bus-mates were all approximately our age. Jon switched to French, a language we have both studied but can only pretend to speak fluently.

"Il faut faire attention; il y a beaucoup d'tudiants ici." ("We should be careful; there's a lot of students here.")

"Oui. Je suis d'accord. On ne parle pas l'anglais." ("Yes, I agree. Let's not use English.")

Feeling less like unwilling performers and more like secret agents, we decided to pretend that we spoke only French and could not comply with any requests to sing Take Me Home Country Roads.

We laughed haughtily, tweaking our imaginary mustaches and smoking imaginary cigarettes, attempting, with our limited vocabularies, to comment (loudly) on the hairstyles and possible romantic relationship of the couple sitting directly in front of us.

As the bus rolled away from the station, the group leader took the mike and spoke to the group in Chinese. "Hi guys! My name is Leaf! I want everyone to take turns introducing yourselves to the group; tell us what you do, where you're from, what your hobbies are."

She passed the mike to the woman in the first row. "Hi, everyone! You can call me Xiao Zhang, I'm from Guangzhou and I'm a French major at Sun Yat-sen University."

I slapped my forehead. Jon's imaginary cigarette fell out of his mouth. The man in front of Jon spoke next: "Hi, guys; I'm Xiao Li. I live in Paris but I'm back in Guangzhou visiting my family."

Jon and I looked at each other, both of our faces now an embarrassing shade of rouge. Somehow we managed to stand up and bumble through our self-introductions without incident, but surely everyone in the back of the bus must have wondered: "Why were the foreigner's faces so red? The one on the right looked like a tomato."

Back in our seats, Jon and I tried to regroup.

"We could speak Pig Latin?"

"Ouyay eallyray antway otay eakspay ikelay isthay orfay otway hourshay?"

"Okay, maybe not."

Besides getting a lot of reading done that day, Jon and I also gained a valuable reminder: English isn't the only foreign language Chinese students are interested in. We never worked up the courage to apologize to the francophone couple. At least we succeeded in avoiding any requests for a serenade. In any case, it looks like we'll need to work on our cultural ambassadorship.

Or, at least, our German.

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